Fwd: electricity from marshy plants in villages

From: *Lakshmi Menon* *Bio-Energy empowers a village in Bihar* * * In 2006, V K Gupta set up the Saran Renewable Energy (SRE), a small family-owned firm which

Message 1 of 1
, Apr 11, 2013

From: Lakshmi Menon

Bio-Energy empowers a village in Bihar

In 2006, V K Gupta set
up the Saran Renewable Energy (SRE), a small family-owned firm which has built
three biomass gasification plants in the Saran district of Bihar

These power plants gasify biomass purchased from local
farmers to generate electricity, which is then sold to local households,
farmers, and businessmen. Garkha, a densely populated village, was plagued by
unreliable supply of electricity forcing people to opt for high-cost and
polluting diesel generators. The gasifiers have now replaced these generators
and supply power to nearly 1000 businesses and households, a school, and two
medical clinics.

SRE’s efforts were rewarded as the company was awarded the prestigious
Ashden Award in 2009 for providing reliable electricity to small businesses
from a biomass gasifier and for enabling farmers to earn reliable income for
producing the biomass.

The gasifier installed at Garkha by SRE is designed to
supply 128 kW electricity at 240 V, a
high voltage for a gasifier. Two 3-kV transmission lines, each 1.25 km, connect
them to the customers. The plant is run for 10 hours every day using 35% of the
total capacity. The gasifier used by SRE is down-draught-open-top gasifier made
by Netpro under license from the IISc (Indian Institute of Sciences),
Bengaluru.Gas engines are used to generate electricity.

Mr Gupta found a location in Saran
district where raw material, dhaincha was regularly available near the plant
site.There were vast tracts of the low-lying
land between the rivers Ganga and Gandak which are water-logged making it
unsuitable for cultivating most crops. But dhaincha thrives in such a soil. It
is low on maintenance and has a short cropping cycle of six to eight months.
The gasifier at SRE uses about 70% dhaincha as raw material and the rest is
from a variety of other sources like corn cobs, wood, and other local plants
similar to dhaincha

.

To maintain an uninterrupted supply
of this marshy crop, SRE gave a beneficial offer to the farmers to grow
dhaincha: free seeds and some incentive. For the farmers, it was a win-win
situation as they could use their otherwise uncultivated land and also earn a
secure earning from it. Nearly five tonnes ofdhaincha can be grown on one hectare yearly. This translates to
7,500–10,000 per hectare from a plot of land that was otherwise lying waste.
Moreover, growing this crop was easy as it does not require any fertilizer or
special care. SRE introduced dhaincha carefully and did not mix it with other
food crops.Dhaincha not only earns from an otherwise water-logged land
that was uncultivated, but also has nitrogen-fixing property.

This is useful for the soil and may
reduce the need for fertilizers and improve the environment.

Use of wastelands for biomass production is one of SRE’s key
innovations that will help in sustainable development and also sustain the
power plants in the long run. SRE is using low-lying lands, which are
waterlogged due to excess rain/river water for most part of the year, and hence
no crops or trees can be grown in these lands. There are other lands that are
waterlogged in monsoon months and hence onlyone crop can be grown in the winter season.

These wastelands have to be tilled and made ready for
growing biomass. Once the land is prepared for the plantations, there are no
inputs required apart from seeds so it is an investment- and risk-free crop.
SRE guarantees purchase of biomass. SRE’s model delivers sustainable social and
economic benefits to the rural poor, enabling them to increase their incomes,
gain access to energy, and improve their quality of life. It has devised
innovative methods to solve the two major problems of energy crisis and excess
water.

The approach is an integrated one wherein SRE uses
techniques to manage excess water and use waterlogged wastelands. Energy
plantations are done during periods of excess water and using the biomass grown
to run biomass power plant for producing electricity to be used for irrigation
and development of agriculture and micro industries.